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Abstract

Diatoms are single-celled algaes that make photonic-crystal-like silica shells or frustules with hierarchical micro- & nano-scale features consisting of two-dimensional periodic pores. This article reports the use of diatom frustules as an integration platform to enhance localized surface plasmon resonances of self-assembled silver nanoparticles (NPs) on the surface of diatom frustules. Theoretical and experimental results show enhanced localized surface plasmons due to the coupling with the guided-mode resonances of the frustules. We observed 2 × stronger optical extinction and over 4 × higher sensitivity of surface-enhanced Raman scattering of Rhodmine 6G from the NPs-on-diatom than the NPs-on-glass structure.

(a) E-field EF of a single Ag NP on top of the diatom frustule (case I and case II) in the weakly coupled configuration (b) E-field EF of Ag NPs inside the pore (case III and case IV) in the strong coupled configuration. In (a) and (b), E-field distributions from the top view are plotted together with the schematics of the cross-section of structures.